Posted
by
samzenpus
on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @07:08PM
from the hanging-on dept.

StewBeans writes: Fortune 500 companies and longstanding corporate giants are losing to startups that are born digital because they can't keep up or they refuse to acknowledge the ways that technology is changing both business and consumer preferences. Getting "Ubered" is now one of the biggest threats to traditional IT departments as the growing number of unicorns like Airbnb, Spotify, Square, and others take over the economy and win the hearts and minds of increasingly mobile, always-on consumers. In this article, nine tech leaders from large companies talk about how they have had to change their approach in order to keep pace and avoid getting disrupted by the next big thing around the corner.

Please, "Ubered", no. Not only no, and also no, but it sounds like a noise I once made in between too many bratwursts with too much mustard and too much sauerkraut, and way way way too much beer. I think the beer was lagered, which would make a sort of onomatopoetic sense, if it led to ubering.

Please, "Ubered", no. Not only no, and also no, but it sounds like a noise I once made in between too many bratwursts with too much mustard and too much sauerkraut, and way way way too much beer. I think the beer was lagered, which would make a sort of onomatopoetic sense, if it led to ubering.

Yes. The word is dumb. Using this particular one seems like a marketing campaign.

Anyway, we already HAVE a term for this phenomena, "disruptive technology" and it's been around since the late 80's.

Just because you fall for some marketing crap, doesn't mean the idea is new...

My personal experiences with Uber when I was in Salt Lake for a convention were terrible. There was so much demand that they were sucking in drivers from other parts of Utah who didn't know the city well. My hotel was on a weird frontage road thing that nav didn't get and every time an uber drive appeared they'd end up circling the hotel and coming in from the other side. Similarly downtown salt lake has two Marriotts (the Downtown Marriott and the City Center Marriott) - I've never had a cab driver mix those up, but I've had an uber driver stubbornly insist that I was at the hotel I wanted despite the nav showing he was a few blocks away.

I did have a couple of excellent uber drivers who'd grown up in the city and had no trouble navigating, but uber does a terrible job of separating those from the crap ones. Their weird arms-length sub-contractor situation really hinders their ability to train drivers and make sure they are up to the right standards. If they are actually required to employ everyone then I think it'll be a hell of a lot better. Frankly I went back to taking regular cabs for every situation but 2am coming back from a bar, it was just easier and more predictable.

Similarly I imagine uber will struggle in places like London where cab services are excellent. The real solution to cities who want rid of uber is to make their own cab services be excellent.

They have those millions because people hate cab companies, and Uber offers a better alternative. So it must not be a piece of crap, if people are voting that heavily for it with their $$$.

Hint: It's not the *people* of the municipalities that don't want Uber, it's the *cab companies* and the *politicians owned by the cab companies* who don't want them.

While this is true to a large degree, there are other factors involved.

I agree that taxi companies and municipalities have long been in each others' drawers, to the detriment of the general populace. But there is also some justification for some of the laws.

For example: making sure a driver had commercial-grade liability insurance. (I don't want to go into the general concept of insurance here; I'm not a big fan. But that is the current system, no matter how much it needs to be changed.)

One of the big problems with Uber is that it has wanted to operate on the cheap, while at the same time charging a rather steep rate for its service. And not only that... it was recently ruled (was it California) that Uber drivers are employees, not contractors, because of the way Uber tells them what to do. And I saw that coming a mile away. I mentioned it here on/. months ago.

Uber tells its drivers what to do WAY too much, if it wants to call them "independent contractors". It tells them they must not get commercial insurance, for example... that is grounds for cancellation. It tells drivers they can't have guns... something you might tell an employee but have no authority to tell a contractor. I am frankly surprised this ruling was made so soon.

It isn't just municipalities. The IRS has guidelines for determining who is a contractor vs who is an employee. And Uber was very obviously way over that line.

Taxi laws came about for more than just insurance. The unregulated taxi industry was literately gang warfare. If you called the wrong taxi company and they came into another taxi company's turf to pick you up, they would get shot at. Sure that wasn't happening everywhere, but it was happening in enough areas that city governments had to step in and those laws eventually spread around the country.

Uber has already shown us the type of cut throat taxi industry they want to create. Very early in their life they, by policy, were scamming other 'taxi' companies with false calls. Instead of spending their money in changing local laws to make their business format legal, they've been spending their money to twist and turn themselves into every shape possible to avoid the issues. I don't care if they offer a better service or not, the company itself is slime and completely morally corrupt. I can't wait until they're crushed. Anyone who trusts them not to turn extra super evil once the standard taxi industry is killed is a fool. Their own history says they will.

No, it makes millions because millions of kids are hooked on their smart phones. They don't hate taxis, but they think using an app is so much cooler even though essentially the services are identical.

What the customers want are irrelevant if laws are broken. Ie, the uber drivers are employees yet in many places they were not granted the protections given to workers by law. If we overturn every law just because some customers want something means pretty soon all laws go away. If there are some artificial barriers to entry into the taxi market (and Uber is just a taxi company) then change those laws instead of ignoring the laws. And don't whine that laws are too hard to change. If you don't live in a democracy then try to get one; if you do have a democracy then you may as damn well make use of it.

The people are voting their will with their wallets.The taxi companies are upset and whining, threatening no political contributions to the politicians.The politicians are not upset about medallions market value because the number of medallions is capped.Why aren't the politicians voting with the people, if that's who they actually represent?

It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just the way politics has pretty much always worked since we quit requiring television and radio stations to operate "in the public i

Airbnb is no golden ray of light either, just like Uber it's skirting way too close to local ordinances (ie, is a home a hotel or not, and if so is it paying hotel taxes, etc).

And face it, "unicorn" is a stupid term anyway. But most of these like real unicorns will turn out to be fiction in the long run. This is all a repeat of the first dot-com era where people also could not tell the difference between fantasy and reality in their rush to get rich quick in the "new" economy.

They ignored employment laws. They ignored safety laws. They just ignored laws in general. Ie, the rule that taxi drivers must have commercial insurance is not just some scam to keep out other taxi companies, it is there because such a public service must have better coverage than the generic driver. Uber was basically lying the whole time, claiming it was just "ride sharing" when it was patently obvious to everyone that it was just another taxi service pretending not to be one in order to avoid regulation.

Maybe the regulations are bad, maybe not. It is irrelevant because that was the law! Just because this is the second wave of dot-com insanity does not mean we get to ignore the law.

They ignored employment laws. They ignored safety laws. They just ignored laws in general. Ie, the rule that taxi drivers must have commercial insurance is not just some scam to keep out other taxi companies, it is there because such a public service must have better coverage than the generic driver.

Yes, and while an uber driver is carrying a paying passenger, Uber provides additional insurance. The only time the driver doesn't have additional insurance is when they're driving to pick someone up. But while the vehicle is "in service", that is, carrying a customer, it does have additional insurance. So, I guess you have no objections?

Uber was basically lying the whole time, claiming it was just "ride sharing" when it was patently obvious to everyone that it was just another taxi service pretending not to be one in order to avoid regulation.

It's a private hire/limo company? How is Uber any different from someone calling a private hire/limo company, negotiating a price for the journey and then being picked up kerbside? All of which is legal in most cities.

The only difference in the process (from the customer's point of view) is that it is much more efficient.

This may be a terminology difference. In the UK (and some parts of US law), Hackney Carriage is the legal term for a vehicle that can be flagged down to pick people up on the street and take them somewhere for a fee (though taxi is in common use for them). Private limos and vehicles that turn up after a phone call / app message / whatever, but can not pick people up from the street are covered by legislation that refers to taxis. In legal terminology, Uber is providing a taxi service, they just might not

Private limos and vehicles that turn up after a phone call / app message / whatever, but can not pick people up from the street are covered by legislation that refers to taxis. In legal terminology, Uber is providing a taxi service, they just might not be in common usage terminology.

You can flag down an Uber car that drives past? Don't think so. That makes Uber a private hire system.

Uber cars turn up after an appointment is made to pick up a specific person. That's pretty much the definition of a pri

They don't own the cars.They don't employ the drivers (the one woman in California who professionally pursues lawsuits like this notwithstanding).The customer can choose the contractor, if there are multiple equivalent ones.They broker the transaction, for a fee.They are a peer to peer service broker; they're like the guy who stands outside the Flea Market and charges admission.

Your company name gets verbed ONLY when it's both appropriate and a new word is necessary. You get verbed by popular consent. I'm not saying a massive advertising campaign won't do it, but it's damn hard to force a meme. Xerox. Jeep. Scotch tape. They were verbed because they offered something new. Google. Skype. They were verbed because so many people used their products. But even a massive advertising agency couldn't do it for, say, Bing. So what has Uber done to justify verbing? Sure it's shorter than, say, "out-innovated". But "Ubered"? It just sticks in my craw. No thanks. And take your viral marketing with you.

"solidarity" is just part of the game. What you "leftist bashing" types miss is that when you're playing a game you should use every advantage you have. Forming unions, and creating solidarity between a group of players increases bargaining power, and allows you to make sure that you get the outcome you desire from the market.

"Enroned"? That's where we first heard of 'rank and yank'. We can say IT departments are trying to avoid getting Enroned: obliterated by a thing made of market capitalization that embodies toxic and perverse outcomes, destined to be spectacularly self-destroyed after doing incalculable damage to society.

Uber is Enron redux, complete with rewriting the rules to its own benefit, completely dependent on its own valuation to continue cancerously expanding or blow up. It'd probably be better for everybody if it

I don't know...I had spicy tacos last night and took a giant Bing this morning. Then my Binging car wouldn't start so I had to walk to work, and wouldn't ya know it, I stepped in a big ol' pile of Bing.

"BING! BING! BING!" I screamed, as I tried to scrape the Bing off my shoes. My boss, who is a total Binghole yelled at me for being late, so I told him to Bing off. I got fired and now I feel like Bing.

Context can help, but even if the sentences are the same, capitalization will show the difference. Article, book, and other media titles and also comic book interior text over-use capitalization, so context will matter there.
I binged on your pizza. (That's okay)
I Binged on your pizza. (Why would you ever?)
Florida Man Binges On A Pizza (News titles almost always use present tense)
Florida Man Admits He Binged On A Pizza (confusing, but the rule of man-bites-dog lets us know what the news is)

Off-roading, mudding, camping, etc. Basically, going on an adventure/sporting trip. Its one of those things that some people who play in the big blue world enjoy doing. But this is Slashdot, so it's okay if you understand... (grin)

Road? Paid by public funds, right? The so-called "road" was created by nothing more than theft-by-force of the hard earned money of businesses and individuals. I therefore reject such communist notions and refuse to recognise "road". Furthermore I shall... *SPLAT*

The problem of traditional IT departments in large corporation is not getting "Ubered"; it's just a matter of having a large organization with all the bureaucracy that comes with it. Even Google struggles with that, as Sergei Brin lamented the other day. Also, I fail to see how Uber, Spotify and AirBnB are eating those IT departments' lunches. The businesses they serve, perhaps, but not those departments.

And those tips from that Enterpriseprojects.com article? Empty buzzwords. "Leverage relationships with decision-makers", "Move at the speed of trust" (Really? Really?! What does that even mean), "If it ain’t broken, consider fixing it", "Use process as business accelerator". These are copied verbatim from the article, and if this is what the best and brightest CIOs in the bunsiess have to offer us, it is small wonder that the IT profession is in such a shite state. I've seen similar statements on a great many powerpoints, and they all failed to make one iota of difference. Yes, you CIO's are going to have to "shift the culture" in your departments, as you like to say. And yes, most of you are woefully unequipped for the task.

The problem of traditional IT departments in large corporation is not getting "Ubered"; it's just a matter of having a large organization with all the bureaucracy that comes with it. Even Google struggles with that, as Sergei Brin lamented the other day.

Well you explained it right there. "Best and brightest CIO" really isn't all that smart. When you're at the C level you are not supposed to have any idea whatsoever what the departments under you do, it's not your job anymore. At the C level you just cheer on your other C level colleagues and collect stock options and hope they pan out some day. The only thing you need to know as a CIO is how to suck up to the CEO and recommend anything Microsoft tells you to.

And those tips from that Enterpriseprojects.com article? Empty buzzwords.

This. A thousand times, this.

I thought I was having a brain aneurism when I read "move at the speed of trust". What is that? Some kind of lame-o version of Green Lantern's power?

Then they pulled out the horrid "DevOps" cliche'. In reality those guys transitioned from a 40-year-old mainframe and software to something more modern. What's that you say? Your version control, integration, builds, and automated testing got faster?

> And those tips from that Enterpriseprojects.com article? Empty buzzwords. "Leverage relationships with decision-makers", "Move at the speed of trust" (Really? Really?! What does that even mean), "If it ain’t broken, consider fixing it", "Use process as business accelerator". These are copied verbatim from the article, and if this is what the best and brightest CIOs in the bunsiess have to offer us, it is small wonder that the IT profession is in such a shite state.

I can see that in a tech company, but in most companies AWS tends to be handled by the IT departments, too, because most of the company is non-technical. And in that case, it's pretty anecdotal, but I haven't seen AWS result in any kind of a hit to IT staffing. It does shuffle it around, but it also creates a big pile of new stuff that has to be done. You have fewer people managing physical infrastructure, and instead have a veritable army of DevOps people shepherding all your instances around, building and updating Docker containers, writing and maintaining Ansible scripts, rewriting all your systems so they can handle AZ outages and failover properly, etc., etc.

I've seen the same thing regarding AWS. We had already moved away from locally managed hardware to a "private cloud", managed remotely through tickets/change requests/etc. and now we are moving again to AWS. Through all of it we've never had to reduce infrastructure staff, in the case of remotely managed private cloud thing you still needed a team that could take requests from product and translate them into sensible hardware/config requests. With AWS it's even more on the shoulders of our own staff as w

Baring all the corporate jargon, the next big thing more often than not is quite simply a scam managed by venture capitalists and hedge fund managers to create the illusion of the 'next big internet company', pump it up to the biggest bubble possible and then sell it to gullible investors and pension funds (investment managers paid commissions to buy) and 'KABOOM', time for the 'next big thing' (they are not fucking around at all, those bubbles are at minimum hundreds of millions of dollars in size and quite a few end up in the billions range - all bullshit public relations and marketing). Seriously how many more of the dot bombs have to fail before people and investigatory agencies wake up and realise it is all mostly just a well orchestrated scam.

We used to refer to these as 'Enron'. Failure is not quite the term for it, things can fail quietly.

To 'Enron' means, crank up a corporate culture full of libertarian bravado breaking all the rules you can in order to build a valuation bubble that you use to push things harder and harder until somebody significant gets caught in a position they can't weasel out of, for whatever reason.

At that point, the top bosses first tell all their employees to buy all the stock they can get their hands on, and then as t

Then try not sucking at your job? Seriously, the reason that Uber has been successful vs traditional taxis is because taxi services suck. Their service tends to be sub optimal and they don't make use of modern technology to allow people to hail and pay for their ride. Uber does better in that regard, and so is popular. Cost really is secondary.

Well, same shit with IT work. If you are "Mordoc the Preventer" then ya, you could well be subject to getting replaced with a service (or person) that better meets their needs. However if you stay on top of what your customers need (customers in this case being the people that call you for service) and try to improve things as you can, then you are more likely to be fine.

I haven't been doing IT all that long, about 15 years now, but in that time I've seen what users need and expect change a lot as technology has changed. They still need and want IT, but what they want from them is different. The IT departments they bitch about are the ones who still think it is 1990 and refuse to update the way they do things.

Well, same shit with IT work. If you are "Mordoc the Preventer" then ya, you could well be subject to getting replaced with a service (or person) that better meets their needs.

Sometimes preventing things is the right thing to do. I'm not saying the end users (referred to us "customers" by people who don't have to deal with them) never have good ideas, but they're outnumbered ten to one by the impossible, unworkable, dangerous and downright impossible.

What I think the article (really more of a short, buzzword-filled list) fails to address is that IT workers aren't leaving major, established corporations for "unicorns" for no reason. Most workers aren't going to give up seniority (and the perks that come with it like better pay and benefits) at a big company for a job at a startup for no reason other than because they can. In reality, it's probably that the startups are offering higher pay and better working conditions, thus giving workers a reason to leave.

This honestly reminds me of where I work right now, where the management is stumped at why they keep having people quit when they have managers going around every night telling people how much they want to fire them and how at risk they are of losing their jobs.

Yeah, I want to echo this a bit. It was really jarring getting work in Russia of all places and right off the bat I make a fool of myself when I see that I get 30 days paid time off for vacation + select holidays; I asked how the available time off was calculated and the HR woman had no idea what I meant. I explained how my last job had vacation time generated based on the time I was actually at work and there was a cap as to how much vacation I could bank at any given time, and she really didn't understand

The issue is that monopolies like taxis get so focused on profits or whatever, that they forget they only get income from customers. With no competition, why should I treat my customers well?

Also most companies are middle-men, so finding a way to cut out the middle man for a middle man company doesn't seem to make sense. Gas stations sell you fuel someone else refined, that someone else dug up. They "add value" in the middle, but are all middle men. So "Ubering" in the sense of more directly connecting the customer to the service or product is the opposite of the goal of most companies. Personally, I'd love it if the manufacturers were to make their products available directly. Order monthly subscriptions to Coca Cola and get what you want delivered directly to your house monthly. For a price near the wholesale price for the store. That's the ideal. Any store marking up 50% or 500% will never compete with that. But it doesn't happen.

That's where Ubering comes in. When a company sees a need, and refuses to meet it.

Monopoly - a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service.
Which one of the 400+ cab companies in New York has the monopoly?

Whilst 400+ companies might be a monopoly in the strict sense it is due to regulation and barriers to entry I live in another country where taxi plates could cost as much as a nice house and using your credit card in any cab would incur flat $10 surcharge even if the amount was less getting a cab meant calling a cab company who had subcontracted drivers. If you used cabs often you would learn to get the phone numbers of the drivers in your area and this let you skip quite a few surcharges - sounds like uber

Of which individual medallion holders are all members. Now, it's a government monopoly, self-regulated in coordination with all the medallion holders, but there is a single authority and a single set of all rules under which all operate. A monopoly. You are licensed by the TLC, or you don't operate. Uber tried to break that monopoly, and that's why there was an issue.

Economic progress is all about doing more with less. What these companies are really doing is automating middle management using economic theory. This is staring with relatively easy service based businesses. But on the other end you have companies like Valve that run with a very flat structure. It will be interesting to see what else people can come up with in more capital intensive or places with better defined tasks.

Valve Ubered Gamestop and EB Games. They tried to play nicer, and so didn't make as big of a fuss about it, but I don't think anyone can cut them out, as they add some value (stored libraries and the like) at a minimal markup.

The problem with wholesalers bypassing retailers is that unless the wholesaler can get a direct market connection with the end consumers it is vulnerable to pressure from retailers that want to protect their own profit margins.

I've heard cases where wholesalers that try to bypass retailers get boycotted out of the retail market.

The issue is that monopolies like taxis get so focused on profits or whatever, that they forget they only get income from customers. With no competition, why should I treat my customers well?

Don't know what it's like where you are, but here taxis are relatively expensive because of the annual Taxi License fees that the state government charges. I can understand the taxi services getting upset when Uber drivers come in offering the same service but avoiding the license fees. The way to solve the problem isn't trying to restrict Uber's operations with new laws and court battles, it's dispensing with the Taxi License fees to make it an open market.

Of course, the other solution is to stop the race to the bottom, and tell Uber that if they want to compete as a taxi service, they shall damn well play by the same rules as existing taxi services.

The problem is twofold. One, often the number of licenses is limited. But two, even when it isn't, all licensing does is prohibit competition and encourage evil. Let me explain. Why do we "need" taxi licensing? The argument is to protect the public safety. But licensed taxi drivers do assault people, etc., and yet in fact, the job is far more dangerous for the drivers than it is for the passengers. The drivers need protection, far more than the other way around! And taxi licenses don't protect anyone from a

Riggght. Replace a regulated marketplace with a single middleman playing piece workers against each other is not a race to the bottom.

Who is planning to replace it? Uber exists alongside traditional taxi services. But if Uber did supplant them, then competitors to Uber would be able to spring up as rapidly as did Uber, by taking advantage of a legal landscape prepared for them by Uber. Therefore, you would not have a single middleman. But right now, you do have a single middleman; the state*, which grants (or does not grant) taxi licenses.

I walked out of a Toyota dealership when I was young. Had a good first job, and was trying to buy an MR2 Turbo. The Gulf States Toyota adds on distributor markup, and distributor features, like "underbody coating" (claiming it's needed on all cars, as the "gulf states" is coastal, and could be exposed to salt air. I lived 200+ miles inland. The wheels were worse than stock, and expensive, and shit like that. I walked out. Looked at buying used, but ended up with a different car.

A lot of people have expressed some doubt as to what this word means. So let me explain it to you. Getting "Ubered" means that the old stupid company you work for has been made obsolete by a young forward looking company that is the epitome of the future of the global technology industry. Even though you will probably lose your job, you are secretly happy that this will finally give you the opportunity to realize your dreams of working for the company that "Ubered" you, even if it is just as a poorly pai

Getting "Ubered" means that the old stupid company you work for has been made obsolete by a young forward looking company that is the epitome of the future of the global technology industry.

We used to call that "obsoleted".

The dubious benefits of using "Ubered" instead of "obsoleted" are:

(1) You will sound cool and tech savvy, since you are associating yourself with something cool and tech savvy (namely: Uber)(2) You will have formed an "in crowd" vs. "out crowd" discriminator so you can laugh at those who look at you "Like WTH, dude?" when you say it(3) You will have save 2 of 4 syllables

If #3 seems that valuable to you, may I suggest you use the MMORPG term everyone uses for when your treasu

A lot of people have expressed some doubt as to what this word means. So let me explain it to you. Getting "Ubered" means that the old stupid company you work for has been made obsolete by a young forward looking company that is the epitome of the future of the global technology industry. Even though you will probably lose your job, you are secretly happy that this will finally give you the opportunity to realize your dreams of working for the company that "Ubered" you, even if it is just as a poorly paid driving contractor with no benefits, it;s totally the best decision you've ever made.

Getting "Ubered" basically means falling in love all over again. You don't care that your mistress is a criminal. You are willing to travel the ends of the earth to be with her, or at least vote for politicians who will change the law to make her innocent again.

But most of all getting "Ubered" means not resisting this beautifully elegant idiom permeating the English language completely.

You've been "Ubered" and you love it so much all you can think about is getting "Ubered" again and again.

What you are describing is a "disruptive technology" and the term has been around for 30 years.

Come on.... I've worked in I.T. for almost 30 years now and the changes tend to happen incrementally, at a pace largely dependent on the release schedules of the vendors involved.

I don't know of a single person in corporate I.T. who feels threatened by the potential of some "upstart" business model appearing out of nowhere and wiping out their job.

If there's a single trend I would say "upset the apple cart" more than anything else for I.T. -- it would be cloud services. But even there, I.T. quickly got a handle on the concept and embraced it selectively in most cases, applying it where it added real value and ignoring it where it was just hype and buzzwords. It probably shifted the number of people doing server support towards the large data centers to an extent not seen since the microcomputer took off in the 80's -- but people with those skills still found places to work using those skills. And more recently, I've seen the cloud technologies begin to get "rolled back" into in-house solutions. For example, our company tried out CrashPlan for backups and put all of our mobile workers on cloud based backup with them. Worked well, but we eventually shifted to the "Enterprise" version of the product, where we run the CrashPlan servers internally and people back up to them over the Internet or any office LAN or wi-fi connection. Saves us money paying someone else for the storage space and gives us the ability to do a restore much more quickly, if needed.

I know several pro photography people doing a similar thing with DropBox. They liked the service but when they really started using it heavily, realized uploads of huge batches of RAW photos was SLOW (partially because upload speeds to DropBox in the cloud are throttled). Now they're looking at alternatives like Transporter, where again, your mass storage is local, on site -- but it works like the cloud in the sense you can upload to it from anywhere.

where again, your mass storage is local, on site -- but it works like the cloud in the sense you can upload to it from anywhere.

One of the prime benefits of backing to a cloud-provider instead of a local storage appliance is that a fire that takes out most of your desktops / laptops is is not also going to take out your backup storage farm.

I don't know of a single person in corporate I.T. who feels threatened by the potential of some "upstart" business model appearing out of nowhere and wiping out their job.

Not only that, but I think most IT people I know would be pretty ambivalent if something did wipe out their job. Sure, it's hard to lose a job and have poor prospects, but on the other hand, most aren't exactly thrilled serving the role of "computer janitor". There's a high frequency of being yelled at, belittled, and being asked absolutely retarded questions.

And you also spend so much time doing things that nobody should have to do. I don't mean "things that are so terrible that nobody should have to e

First of all, fuck you. You have made way too much money by having access to the right decision makers to sell them on expensive ineffective bullshit. You have cushy jobs because you only need to actually work 2 hours a week since you have convinced management that the entire corporation cannot do anything with tablets or cellphones or bring your own device in the name of security. You have used the firewall to block everything productive or potentially disruptive to requiring your 'expertise' from the Inte

That is really not what Ubered is. These next big thing companies are not only different in that they are fast and lean and dynamic; Primarily they are different because instead of a corporate behemoth employing hundreds of thousands of people, one programming wiz and his friend just program an automated app.
A corporate behemoth with departments and HR and thousands to millions of employees cannot ever compete with two guys and an automated app; and they cannot adapt into one. There is no way to avoid being ubered, you just have to hope that your entire corporation is not the next to be automated away with a few thousand lines of smart code. You might as well talk about shaking up a search results factory, where millions full of workers find and return results to internet searches in the hope of never getting ubered by Google.

We're not "Ubering" because we're more mobile. We're becoming more mobile because companies are being Ubered. This is not an effect, this is a cause. Companies are Ubering because that way they can eliminate pensions, benefits, salaries, wages, and even the employees - Uber, for the uber example, plans on replacing all those "contractors" with robot cars. That means: all taxi drivers, gone. All Uber drivers, gone. Net result: the "inevitable" funneling of all profits to the owners and to Wall Street. The co